This event report summarises the key issues discussed at Warc's Next Generation Research conference, which included storytelling, neuromarketing, mobile research and social media. View Summary

This event report summarises the key issues discussed at Warc's Next Generation Research conference, which included storytelling, neuromarketing, mobile research and social media. Market researchers have increasing numbers of techniques available to them, but there is a danger of drowning in data. Instead, researchers need to look for patterns and meanings in order to tell stories. In terms of neuromarketing techniques, the most effective were argued to combine implicit and explicit response metrics with moment-by-moment trace. An example of facial coding used by Unilever is given, along with results of a study which explained the impact of dual-screening on engagement with TV ads. Mobile research offers the opportunity to get quick results at scale, but does not answer researchers' questions on its own. Technology and automation will not remove the need for humans, as only people can provide interpretation, ask the right questions and answer why people behave as they do.

This paper proposes a way of reconciling Big Data and qualitative analysis in order to make the most of both. View Summary

This paper proposes a way of reconciling Big Data and qualitative analysis in order to make the most of both. These are contrasting approaches to analysis: Big Data is a world of size, dynamic data, vast trends, patterns and predictions; and qualitative analysis is a world of in-depth enquiry, causality and descriptions. The need to adopt a new mindset, retain the quintessential research approach and suspend the 'Traditional Qualitative Agenda' to analyse Big Data is addressed. Using technology solutions combined with traditional methods can deliver useful insights in real time for innovation teams in the emerging world.

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When marketing met Big Data

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Colin Strong, Market Leader, Quarter 4, 2013, pp. 32-35

In the era of Big Data, this article argues for the need to apply a more holistic, human approach to understanding consumers. View Summary

In the era of Big Data, this article argues for the need to apply a more holistic, human approach to understanding consumers. Big Data has many benefits and is being used in ways that transform how the consumer touches the brand and the application of online advertising. But purely data-driven decisions can fail to properly understand the real world. Data-driven approaches can cause consumers to feel a sense of 'creepiness', can increase the number of false positives and often ignore the broader reasons for consumer choices. Hybrid approaches that combine Big Data with conventional market research are advocated.

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From the editor: Big data: friend or foe?

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Colin Grimshaw, Admap, September 2013, pp. 3-3

In this introduction to the September 2013 issue of Admap, the editor discusses some of the pitfalls of Big Data and how these might be overcome. View Summary

In this introduction to the September 2013 issue of Admap, the editor discusses some of the pitfalls of Big Data and how these might be overcome. Big Data can be overwhelming, making it difficult to generate actionable insight. It can also be misleading, creating 'spurious correlations' that are nothing more than coincidence. This article suggests that to maximise the impact of Big Data it should be used to trigger human insight and inform human creativity, rather than attempting to replace either.

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Big Data, not magic data

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Mark Earls and Alex Bentley, Admap, September 2013, pp. 18-21

This article argues that to maximise the value of Big Data marketers should use simple pattern-spotting techniques, ask intelligent questions to unlock insight, and utilise freely available data from companies like Google. View Summary

This article argues that to maximise the value of Big Data marketers should use simple pattern-spotting techniques, ask intelligent questions to unlock insight, and utilise freely available data from companies like Google. There are three major myths of Big Data: more data is better, more data means better predictions, and that real time data is always better. The article argues that the value of Big Data lies with predicting mass level rather than individual behaviour and that predictions generated by Big Data may be mundane, highlighting trends that are already clear to humans. The article suggests that Big Data is most useful when combined with human thinking rather than seeking to replace it.

This presentation posits that adding judicious use of market research to big data leads to "smart data". View Summary

This presentation posits that adding judicious use of market research to big data leads to "smart data". It sees big data, gathered by researchers from both proprietary and open sources, as representing an opportunity to gain deeper understanding of human behaviour. The rise of smart data can be seen in the emerging disciplines of cyber-psychology and computational sociology. Various smart data measures and metrics - specific to individuals, segments and social networks - are discussed.

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Point of view: The socialisation of research

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Stan Sthanunanthan, Admap, March 2013, pp. 7-7

Social media has not only changed the way we interact with each other, it also has the ability to transform the research industry, with the likes of Google Consumer Surveys already proving itself to be more accurate than most opinion polls when it came to predicting the result of the recent US Presidential Election. View Summary

Social media has not only changed the way we interact with each other, it also has the ability to transform the research industry, with the likes of Google Consumer Surveys already proving itself to be more accurate than most opinion polls when it came to predicting the result of the recent US Presidential Election. Sthanunathan predicts that the insights industry's transformation is likely to be spearheaded by China in the next five years and virtual focus groups will be the new norm. One-on-one in-depth interviews will be easy to conduct and become very cost-effective too but the biggest impact social media will have is its ability to provide deep understanding of human conditions.

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Using big data to improve business efficiency: A report from I-COM 2012

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Cila Warncke, Event Reports, I-COM, October 2012

A round-up of presentations from I-COM 2012, looking into the issue of whether or not the Big Data trend is driving business efficiencies. View Summary

A round-up of presentations from I-COM 2012, looking into the issue of whether or not the Big Data trend is driving business efficiencies. Presenters argue that, regardless of the business concerned, the application of data insight can increase efficiency, hone strategy, and provide new means to offer improved customer service. In order for this to happen, brands and marketers need to: identify areas where data can impact on a specific business problem, look at specific, relevant data in context, and, where possible, integrate data into marketing to allow for rapid targeting and tailoring of communications.

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The business of Big Data: Nielsen and comScore at I-COM 2012

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Cila Warncke, Event Reports, I-COM, October 2012

A round-up of the key issues businesses and marketers face as they address the brave new world of big data, as discussed at the I-COM conference in 2012. View Summary

A round-up of the key issues businesses and marketers face as they address the brave new world of big data, as discussed at the I-COM conference in 2012. Research firms providing insights at the event include Nielsen and comScore. The presenters suggest that, a) consumers are increasingly tech savvy and protective of their personal data, b) that businesses face the internal task of managing and analysing the vast amount of data available and the external challenge of using data-fuelled insights to improve consumer communication, relationships and loyalty, and c) that advertisers have to work in close partnership with agencies to help them assess the relevant data and use it to shape strategy.

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Big Data strategies: Key themes from I-COM 2012

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Cila Warncke, Event Reports, I-COM, October 2012

A round-up of presentations from the I-COM 2012 conference. Across the course of a wide range of panel discussions and presentations a number of key themes emerged. View Summary

A round-up of presentations from the I-COM 2012 conference. Across the course of a wide range of panel discussions and presentations a number of key themes emerged. Among these were the challenges of adapting to the Big Data megatrend – the explosion in available data on shoppers available to companies in recent years. Presenters suggested that Big Data has reshaped the way corporations are structured, the way they plan and analyse, and the way they market their goods and services.

A report from Datacentric, an event organised by Warc. Among the major themes discussed by presenters are: that the rise of "big data" has helped firms to tap new sources of information about customer... View Summary

A report from Datacentric, an event organised by Warc. Among the major themes discussed by presenters are: that the rise of "big data" has helped firms to tap new sources of information about customers, giving them the ability to optimise communications in real time; that clients are using online data in a variety of ways, and with varying degrees of success; and that the regulatory environment, particularly for web cookies, is likely to get considerably tougher in future.

As a data analysis technology, data mining has matured to the extent that there are now a number of sophisticated commercial software packages available. View Summary

As a data analysis technology, data mining has matured to the extent that there are now a number of sophisticated commercial software packages available. The purpose of this article is to explore what data mining has become, its relationship to statistics and its relevance in market research.

Reporting from ad:Tech Chicago 2009, Geoffrey Precourt, WARC's U.S. editor, covers a session on 360-degree marketing by Elva Lewis, Procter & Gamble's associate director of corporate marketing. Lewis argues that P&G is "one of the biggest and most siloed companies in the world", presenting unique challenges when it comes to understanding its customers. Currently, the FMCG giant's communications target around half of the potential U.S. audience base of 200 million people. The company's former marketing director, Jim Stengel, emphasised the importance of understanding the "who", the "what" and the "how" of the purchase process, but, until now, only the first of these criteria had been truly met, she added. However, by aggregating this information, and taking advantage of the scale of its operations, in a single-source database, P&G will now "be able to understand, for the first time, the individual. We'll know who she is. We'll know what she cares about at P&G."

This paper summarises the presentation by Martin Hayward on "Connecting the dots: joined-up insight finally becomes possible" given at the IJMR Research Methods Forum: ‘Methods Matter: Interviewing an... View Summary

This paper summarises the presentation by Martin Hayward on "Connecting the dots: joined-up insight finally becomes possible" given at the IJMR Research Methods Forum: ‘Methods Matter: Interviewing and Beyond’, 25 November 2008, Royal Society, London.

This paper describes the cross-functional team project, which was aimed to reconstruct consumer insights for building relevant and effective communication for children in the ice-cream category in Pol... View Summary

This paper describes the cross-functional team project, which was aimed to reconstruct consumer insights for building relevant and effective communication for children in the ice-cream category in Poland.

The paper describes how the development of store loyalty programmes enabled the emergence of a new kind of data allowing analysis of consumer behaviour at the point of sale. View Summary

The paper describes how the development of store loyalty programmes enabled the emergence of a new kind of data allowing analysis of consumer behaviour at the point of sale. This information is of course first used to develop purchases of the store's loyalty card holders, then to describe behavioural characteristics of these clients. But a third way of analysis now exists now, thanks to the size of FMCG stores' client databases; the analysis of consumer behaviour on product categories and consumer reaction before marketing stimuli.

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How to be a customer champion: turning insight into action

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Martin Hayward, Market Leader, Issue 34, Autumn 2006, pp. 30-31

This paper argues that the speed with which consumer insights and information can now be fed back to managements are now much faster than they used to be, even on a daily basis, but that this has not been matched by the ability of managements to take advantage of this feedback and respond. View Summary

This paper argues that the speed with which consumer insights and information can now be fed back to managements are now much faster than they used to be, even on a daily basis, but that this has not been matched by the ability of managements to take advantage of this feedback and respond. Rather, planning organisation, practices and systems remain agonisingly slow. Winning companies in the future will be those that learn how to respond rapidly to continuous fast consumer data, including a much greater willingness to experiment. How this will be possible with the new database analyses offered by firms like dunnhumby is indicated.

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Online panels require expertise and knowledge far beyond the traditional market research skill set - a case study of the InkJet online panel

This paper details how online panels require input from many disciplines outside normal market research practice and, most interestingly, involves what, to many, is the antithesis of market research, namely direct marketing. The paper solely refers to the creation and development of the HP online InkJet panel, a pan-European panel that has been in operation for nearly five years.

The authors present an innovative way to deal with a frequent practical problem in CRM and direct marketing projects: the lack of cases with known target behavior. View Summary

The authors present an innovative way to deal with a frequent practical problem in CRM and direct marketing projects: the lack of cases with known target behavior. Usually, this makes learning scoring models that can be utilized for selecting the target group of a new campaign infeasible. The approach presented resorts to auxiliary target variables whose nature is derived through analogous induction and whose similarity can be calculated by using odds ratio and Euclidian distance. We will illustrate how the methodology works on a practical example taken from the automotive industry.

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'Dirty data' and customer feedback applications

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Jeffrey W. Manning, Market Research Society, Annual Conference, 2003

This is a practical paper which presents a model for better use of existing customer feedback data, or 'dirty data', within organizations, rather than sole reliance external research and purchased modeled data. View Summary

This is a practical paper which presents a model for better use of existing customer feedback data, or 'dirty data', within organizations, rather than sole reliance external research and purchased modeled data. The application of these principles will allow companies to streamline external expenditure on research and data while redirecting those funds towards processes that allow for continuous refreshment of customer information to drive insights and build proprietary assets. In this way, this paper looks more at the macro level application of research procedures than it does at specific techniques. The transition from use of traditional 'clean' purchased data to the application of customer-generated 'dirty' data requires new levels of creativity among analysts, market researchers and campaign planners. The structured application of customer feedback processes promises to build shareholder value as proprietary database assets are developed.

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Never Work With Children or Graduates? BMRB's Class of 2001 Demonstrate Insight to Action

Describes work undertaken as part of the graduate trainee scheme at BMRB International. Segmentation work was carried out on Youth TGI data (of some 4000 respondents). View Summary

Describes work undertaken as part of the graduate trainee scheme at BMRB International. Segmentation work was carried out on Youth TGI data (of some 4000 respondents). Six clusters were developed and are described - mummy's boys/girls, fun lovers, music-loving intellectuals, rebellious teenagers, alienated loners, and nerds. Two further pieces of work, looking at the youth mobile phone market, and at those who had been excluded from school, are described. Both involved a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. The benefits gained from this variety of work are outlined.

The paper notes the extent and nature of 'do-it-yourself' (DIY) research, where part or all of the work is undertaken by the client company, without the use of specialist or full-service research agencies. View Summary

The paper notes the extent and nature of 'do-it-yourself' (DIY) research, where part or all of the work is undertaken by the client company, without the use of specialist or full-service research agencies. Distinctions are drawn between different types of research which may be outsourced and notes that the growth of IT technology has made some data collection, and much data analysis, easier to handle by a non-specialist. The potential advantages of do-it-yourself research are discussed (value for money, efficiency and quality) and are compared with the equivalent advantages of using external research specialists (context, capability, plus - again - efficiency and quality). In conclusion, the paper suggests that the industry needs to come to terms with DIY research, and suggests ways in which this might happen.

Simmons Market Research and Looking Glass have taken a truly innovative step which has produced the next generation of powerful database marketing. View Summary

Simmons Market Research and Looking Glass have taken a truly innovative step which has produced the next generation of powerful database marketing. Together, they have married two worlds - consumer market research and state-of-the art targeted database marketing - resulting in the first synergistic approach to marketing for both direct and traditional marketers. Direct marketing concepts can now be applied to targeting traditional media channels and traditional marketers are able to take advantage of direct marketing applications. The bridging of consumer research and database marketing provides the richest source of information about a customer's behavior, inside and outside of your place of business and expands the opportunity to reach out to customers through all media, from traditional channels to direct marketing. This integrated Customer Relation Management (CRM) solution gives marketers a better understanding of their current client base, enabling them to employ cross selling, customer acquisition/retentions, and customer service strategies that provide tremendous sales/revenue lift. The marketer is able to determine, through direct, one-to-one marketing the best multimedia channels to use as well as see a true picture of the current and potential customer. Businesses can efficiently market the right product to the right customer, with the right message and using the proper multimedia channels.

The authors of this paper argue that the rise of new technologies such as databases and the Internet offer both new challenges and opportunities to the market research industry. View Summary

The authors of this paper argue that the rise of new technologies such as databases and the Internet offer both new challenges and opportunities to the market research industry. At a time when CRM is reported to have grown more than 30% a year with projected total revenues of $12.1 billion by the end of 2001, it is noteworthy that few traditional market research firms have seized the opportunity. Despite embracing the Internet for data collection, few research companies have been able to translate research technology and talent to take advantage of this huge business opportunity. Although data collection is a key benefit of the Internet, a bigger potential benefit is the delivery of information and insights to decisions makers via the Internet. The emerging CRM industry makes this a central goal and is reaping the benefits. The paper presents both theoretical and case study findings that offer a new way to relate to market research that can potentially bring the research industry to the top of executives' priority list.

This paper looks at how the relationship between the U.K. market research and database marketing industry has evolved over the last decade, the problems encountered and opportunities for both industries going forward. View Summary

This paper looks at how the relationship between the U.K. market research and database marketing industry has evolved over the last decade, the problems encountered and opportunities for both industries going forward. In particular we will look at how market research has to adapt from a mass-market tool, to address the needs of one to one relationship marketing. To demonstrate how market research can embrace such a challenge I shall call upon a recent successful case study from TSB bank, where, through use of market research techniques, we were able to focus database marketing activity on the retention of customers with the greatest profit potential.